Bull City Rising is rooting for the completion of the American Tobacco Trail in Durham.
Hey, maybe we should do something like that here!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Happy Trails
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Bull City Rising is rooting for the completion of the American Tobacco Trail in Durham.
Hey, maybe we should do something like that here!
Posted by
David Wharton
at
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Labels: bicycling, pedestrianism, transportation, urban design
5 comments:
The greenbelt at Town Lake in downtown Austin is a huge attraction for that city, and emblematic of its commitment. That commitment is a selling point to attracting people to move to the town, especially young recent college grads. A greenbelt anything like that in the Triad would be great.
Rails To Trails is something I support, a great way to preserve greenspace, make great walking trails and preserve rail beds for possible future mass transit projects. The problem for Greensboro is the City has been selling off old railroad beds including the line that runs north from downtown up Battleground.
And who was one of the buyers? A former Greensboro Mayor who owns Southern Foods on old Battleground road.
I fought against the selling of these abandoned rail beds years ago but alas I didn't know what was good for Greensboro. Or so I was told.
Billy, as regards the Battleground railroad track, here's a quote from the City's adopted greenway plan:
"3. Battleground Rail-Trail
The Battleground Rail-Trail is an ongoing effort within the City of Greensboro and is thus part of the comprehensive greenway network. It utilizes a railroad corridor that parallels Battleground Avenue and facilitates off-road ransportation and recreation through a very congested area of the City. This vital Type IV greenway link supports multiple uses and provides a strong, north-south spine connecting the Lake Brandt Greenway, Bicentennial Greenway, and Watershed Region with Downtown Greensboro.
The proposed Pine Cone Greenway, Green Valley Connector, Downtown Loop Trail, and the existing Lake Daniel Greenway can be accessed via the Battleground Rail Trail once the greenway network has been completed. Because a portion of the railroad line is still active near the downtown, only the northern and middle portions of the corridor can be completed until the southern portion of the line is abandoned."
The railroads own the railroad right-of-ways, I think, and the city has to buy them once they're abandoned.
All I know for certain is that Southern Foods has a building and a parking lot that crosses that railroad ROW and if anyone would like to see it I will gladly show it to them.
Former Mayor Vic Nussbalm, owner of Southern Foods, bought his piece of the railroad property a year or two after he left office and he bought it for a steal.
I don't see how the City can sell this property, allow people to build on it and now propose a trail on the same property. The property they're talking about using has since been developed. Myself and many others tried to get the City to hang on to this property but they were dead set on selling it. You can't put a trail (which I would love to see built) on a corrirdor you no longer own.
I think maybe we're talking about two different rail lines.
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